Monday, December 11, 2006

GP - Top 10 Things the Lads Like To Do (or How to Become a Hooligan)

****************copyright 2006 by Ms. Huis HerselfPlease read this at www.musenmutter.blogspot.combecause that is the REAL site. Thank you!****************Top 10 Things the Lads Like To Do(or How to Become a Hooligan)by Mr. Kluges

As some of you know, Ms Huis is occasionally kind enough to let me do a guest post on her site. This means that I get to ponder all kinds of fun and amusing things to write about; most of which never make it out of my head to see the light of day.

The other day all of us were wandering around the grocery store picking up our weekly supplies of soda bread, bacon, cabbage and Guinness and I was in charge of keeping Pumpkin entertained while Ms. Huis ran about grabbing aforementioned items.

I started thinking about how pushing the stupid shopping cart was a great allegory to moving overseas and how that would make a great post. Well, one thought led to another and next thing I knew, I was coming up with "The top 10 things the lads like to do on a Friday night."

How did get from point A to point Q? Read the list below and you should be able to puzzle it out.

As an introduction, when I talk about "the lads", I'm talking about boys aged 15 to early 20's. Most of these men start out as garden variety young drinkers and after several years of hard study and practice, they graduate to outright hooligans.

So with no further ado...

10. Get pissed - because we all know that getting drunk is a good precursor to doing stupid things.

9. Turn signs the wrong way - I can't tell you the number of times we've come to a pole in the middle of a three, four or five way intersection with all of the signs pointing the wrong way. Great for getting the "foreigners" lost.

8. Piss on the Blarney Stone - Now you know why the Blarney Stone tasted funny if you were the first one to kiss it in the morning. (Note from Ms. Huis Herself - I do believe (and hope) he's kidding on this one... and I've kissed it myself without any known ill effects!)

7. Throw traffic Cones into ANY body of water over one foot deep. We've seen orange traffic cones in rivers, lakes and even fountains. Since the River Lee in Cork is tidal, it's good fun to count the traffic cones once the tide has gone down. One point for each cone found.

6. Throw shopping carts into ANY body of water over one foot deep. See above. This is even more fun than traffic cones. They're larger and they have wheels! Anything with wheels is a prime target of the lads. Again, one point for each shopping cart spotted.

5. Steal signs - As tourists get closer and closer the lair of the lads, it becomes necessary to steal the signs rather than just turn them the wrong way. With no signs at all, the foreigners have no idea where they are headed.

4. Get langers - At some point, it's not enough to be pissed. You have to really be drunk to proceed onwards.

3. Steal cars - Make sure the car is always locked and in front of the house, otherwise it'll be a learning aid for the local hooligan-to-be.

2. Joyride in stolen car - Once said car is stolen, what better fun than to race through the countryside (langers), until finally the car runs out of petrol.

1. Light stolen car on fire - and for the pièce de résistance, trash said stolen car.

And that's one way your typical Irish lad can move his way up to the top of the hooligan ladder. From there it's just a short journey to being a criminal.

(Note from Ms. Huis Herself - Hope you all enjoyed that semi-tongue-in-cheek account of Irish "lad-ism" from Mr. Kluges. If you've ever been here, I know you've seen the shopping carts in the water!)